Big Nanny

“I’m asking people to stop their nonsense right now,” Mayor Marty Walsh said at a Monday news conference. “These are adults jumping out windows. It’s a foolish thing to do and you could kill yourself.”

Big sodas can stay on the menu in the Big Apple after New York state's highest court refused Thursday to reinstate the city's first-of-its-kind size limit on sugary drinks. But city officials suggested they might be willing to revisit the supersize-soda ban. [Mindful Webwork Daily Doodle from 2013 Feb 20: I Drink to Bloomberg - ballpoint on styrofoam]

Instead of solving the problem at its root by doing away with the Renewable Fuel Standards and letting market forces dictate what fuel is available, the merry band of bureaucrats at the EPA issued a mandate that any consumer buying gas at an E15 vendor, regardless of their individual need, must purchase four gallons or more. The idea here is that those purchases to the tune of four gallons and upwards renders the residual fuel amount too small to do damage.

After some 300 years of use, most oil-based paints are beginning to be phased out, destined to become the buggy whips and Easter bonnets of architectural coatings. Even die-hard traditionalists like me have accepted the changes, while painters and do-it-yourselfers say that, after decades of constant reformulations for oil and latex paints (also called waterborne paints because they're thinned with water), it's about time manufacturers left their product lines alone and gave people a chance to adjust to the latest technology.

525 Bonfires?
The Federal Government has banned all outside fires and burning in the state of Georgia.
The E.P.A. has decided that any fires set outside, yes your Bar-B-Que grill and campfire hotdogs and marshmallows are illegal.
Don't even think about the chimanea or the bug lamps, nope illegal.
The burning ban runs from May 1st till September 1st 2012
This is not because of drought, high winds or forest fires, nope this is about clean air. Your fire apparently kills the Ozone layer and makes Mother Nature cry.
So to save the Ozone for the children of the future there will be no fires in Georgia this summer.
No Do Not Even Strike a Match!
—HEP-T at April 23, 2012 12:04 PM

Jodi replied that she would not be comfortable answering the questions if she couldn’t know the allegations. Immediately the social worker proclaimed, “Since you’re not going to cooperate, I’ll just go and call the police and we can take custody of the baby.”

At the instigation of a mentally unbalanced bee-keeper, the similarly unbalanced European Court (EuGH), the highest court in the EUSSR, is considering whether honeybees are allowed to approach genetically modified plants and take their pollen.

"bizarre" is too mild a word to describe San Francisco's latest outburst; even from my pro-choice perspective, the city's attempt to essentially banish any counseling center which doesn't encourage or perform abortions is simply beyond belief.

By now, you likely have heard of Dr. David Ludwig, Harvard professor and child obesity specialist at Children's Hospital in Boston. He and attorney and research partner Lindsey Murtagh authored a piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting that severely obese children might require the government to remove them from custody of their parents. If this doesn't convince you that liberals support a nanny state, nothing will. As a child psychologist with over 20 years of experience, I can say with supreme confidence that taking a child from his or her parents is almost always traumatic. Sometimes it is justified, of course; in cases of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, the child is sometimes far better off living without the offending parent. Similarly, when a parent evidences a profound inability to provide the basic needs of a child, the child might be safer with a relative or, rarely, with a foster parent. But removing a child from the home because the parent doesn't adequately assist the child in losing weight? This is nothing short of ridiculous.

The government's ability to make us buy light bulbs we don't want is crucial, he says, because "if we take away government and society's tools to even attempt to respond to a world of limits in a collective fashion, I'm not sure how we'll survive." Let me try to unpack that argument as charitably as I can.

Fluorescent lighting makes me feel like I'm dead, and am just haunting whatever room I happen to be in. It makes me feel like the top of my head has been replaced with something clammy and toxic. It makes me feel like filling up my 15-passenger van with overpriced gas and barreling nonstop to Al Gore's house and smacking his silly, fat face around until he admits that his main goal is and always has been to make each and every day for the entire human race a little less bearable.

The House on Friday morning moved to block federal light bulb efficiency standards without even a roll call vote. ... forbids the Department of Energy from enforcing the standards in the next budget year. ... only fixes the problem through September 2012.

Lawmakers passed on a voice vote an amendment to energy-spending legislation for fiscal year 2012 barring the Energy Department from implementing or enforcing lighting-efficiency standards set by 2007 legislation.

Despite the fact that city authorities have temporarily dropped a case against Oak Park resident Julie Bass for growing a vegetable garden in her front yard after the story received nationwide attention, Bass has now been hit with a new criminal charge for owning unlicensed dogs, clear evidence says Bass that she's the victim of a vendetta.

Even when a mother is literally killing her children with deep-fried, chocolate-covered kindness, it is counter-intuitive for her to listen to criticism of the way she is performing that most basic of womanly tasks: bringing up baby. I do, in fact, have a sneaking sympathy for some among such misguided parents — although plenty of people don't. Take Tam Fry, chairman of Britain's Child Growth Foundation, who doesn't mince his words at all; he calls the stuffing of children's already fat faces 'a form of child abuse'.

Many who govern in America's capital think that they can wave their legisla tive wands and unleash beauty -- free of costs and complications. Of course, reality rarely cooperates. Consider Washington's ban on the incandescent light bulb. If left unchallenged, Jan. 1 will herald stricter standards that Congress designed in 2007 to electrocute Thomas Edison's invention and dragoon Americans into using more energy-efficient alternatives. Americans are enduring a parade of unforeseen consequences as "the experts" try to extinguish this landmark contribution to humanity. Compact Fluorescent Lamps, which Washington hopes will replace incandescent ones, brighten slowly, function poorly with dimmer knobs and emit a color of light that many find unappealing. Even worse, according to EnergyStar.gov, each CFL contains 4 milligrams of toxic mercury. An average CFL includes enough mercury to pollute 528 gallons of water.

it is the left which wants to control everything that goes on in every other room in the house to include the kitchen and garage... proposed "voluntary" regulation by the Federal Trade Commission, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.... calls for voluntary compliance, but apparently there's also a proposed penalty for those foods which aren't reformulated... "If the food is not reformulated, no more ads or promotions on TV, radio, in print, on websites, as well as other digital advertising such as e-mail and text messaging, packaging, and point-of-purchase displays and other in-store marketing tools; product placement in movies, videos, video games, contests, sweepstakes, character licensing and toy branding; sponsorship of events including sport teams and individual athletes; and, philanthropic activity tied to branding opportunities...." Between the EPA, the Department of Interior, and now this bunch, the war on US businesses continues apace. Choice — the lost concept of freedom.

Every two to three years, Eddie Sales trims and prunes the crape myrtles at his church, Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church. But this year, the city of Charlotte cited the church for improperly pruning its trees. "We always keep our trees trimmed back because you don't want to worry about them hanging down in the way," said Sales, a church member. The church was fined $100 per branch cut for excessive pruning, bringing the violation to $4,000.

It started out as a hobby, a way for the Dollarhite family in Dixa, Mo., to teach a teenage son responsibility. Like a lemonade stand. But now, selling a few hundred rabbits over two years has provoked the heavy hand of the federal government to the tune of a $90,643 fine. The fine was levied more than a year after authorities contacted family members, prompting them to immediately halt their part-time business and liquidate their equipment.

School food is the only option for kids at Little Village Academy, a Chicago school that doesn't allow students to bring lunches from home.... and some parents, and many students, aren't fans of the policy...

The Scotts have no problem with the Census, but they're not too keen on participating in the American Community Survey... "My wife has to sit with the lights off because she doesn't want to be bothered." Often, even that doesn't work. "They knock and knock and knock and ring and ring and ring," Beverly Scott said. "Knocking longer is not going to make me answer the door, and it's not going to help if we're not here."...

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told an administration official at a recent hearing that it's "insulting" for the government to tell consumers what light bulbs they can buy, because the government believes it "know[s] what's best for me." South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said in a statement that, "Americans are fully capable of choosing the best way to light their own homes and what best fits the needs and budget of their families ... it's clear the 'nanny state' mentality has gotten out of control in Washington."

A U.S. House committee approved a bill Tuesday to block a federal agency from regulating greenhouse gases, but the real drama broke out in the Senate, where Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe is pushing the measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced Inhofe's bill as an amendment to a small-business measure. McConnell said the time had come for the Senate to take a stand on the legislation, which is designed to strip the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases in response to climate change. But following hours of strongly worded debate, an attempt to reach an agreement on holding floor votes Tuesday evening apparently failed.

Call it the Nanny State run amok. By hosting an all-day White House conference on adolescent bullying last week, President Obama elevated a schoolyard issue to the level of public enemy No. 1... [h/t Cuz BD]

The Oklahoma House has killed legislation authorizing the Board of Health to develop rules for altering the gender on the birth certificates of people who have sex change operations.... voted 71-23 to defeat...

A Virginia middle school student has been suspended for . . . opening the door for a woman whose hands were full.... You can't be too careful. Your average middle school, high school, or college can expect to see an on-campus shooting about once every 12,000 years....